WHO: Sydney Cubb and Wesley Atwood. WHEN: Late night on April 8th, 2019 into early morning April 9th, 2019. WHERE: This is a dream that moves from IUP to Boston to Connecticut. SUMMARY: Wes is dreaming about what he wishes would happen. WARNINGS: Depression, talk of loss, feels.
Waves crashed against the shore. They licked at the sand, retreated, and then jumped further, nearly reaching his toes where he stood staring at the water. He closed his eyes and breathed in the salty air, finally feeling at home. There was peace by the water. It felt like home. His home. The home he had known as a child and missed for all of the years that he had bounced from place to place in an effort to make it to someone who might care for him and about him.
Wes slowly climbed onto the sand, resting his knees, his chest, his palms, then his cheek, where he stayed until the waves roared and swept him out to sea.
He was standing on the grounds of the Kappa Omega Delta, staring up at the banners that hung beside the windows. He couldn’t read what they said. It caused a stir of panic until he turned away. He knew he had to finish something else first. He collected the bags at his feet and walked next door, standing outside of the Rho house, backpack stuffed full of books, cookies in hand. The door opened as he climbed the steps and he headed past another Rho girl, nodding his greeting, before he headed upstairs toward Sydney’s room.
“I need to talk to you,” he told the door. “It’s very important. Urgent, even.”
The door opened almost immediately. Not all the way, though. Sydney still had a hand on the doorknob, and she was standing there, blocking entry, with her free hand on the doorframe to make a solid barrier. She looked at Wes like she couldn’t believe what he was saying. Like she couldn’t believe he was there. It was so unlike her, but she glared. Her eyes narrowed and she glared at him from her spot blocking the doorway.
“You have no right,” she said. “It was important years ago. It was urgent years ago, Wes. But I wasn’t. Not important enough. So why should I listen to you now?”
He stalled out, staring at the angry force looking back at him. Some part of him thought this was wrong, unexpected. Nevertheless, he persisted.
“I don’t,” Wes explained. “You’re right. I have no right.” He exhaled the breath he’d been holding and turned to leave. The hallway looked longer than it should be, but he found himself turning back, determined.
“I should never have left. I wanted to stay, but I was scared.”
It was clear by the look on her face that Sydney hadn’t expected him to turn around. She thought he’d just keep going, because that was what he did. He walked away. Her expression didn’t soften. The confusion and surprise just blended with the anger.
“I was scared too. I was scared, and heartbroken, but I was still there for you. I was there for you when you broke, and I would’ve been there to help pick up the pieces. Even though I didn’t get my answers. Even though I couldn’t pick up my pieces, because they never found him and that dragged everything out in such an unbearable way. I was still there for you. And you ran. So what can you possibly say now, Wes? Tell me.”
“I don’t have the perfectly right thing to say, Syd,” Wes whispered. “I’m not excusing what I did. If I could go back—” He exhaled sharply and ran a hand over his face. “But I can’t.” He looked away again, down the hallway, before refocusing on Sydney. “I’ve never been good with this part. I didn’t know how to be there for you. You lost the most important person in your life and I lost..” He trailed off, seemingly unable to continue. “Tell me what to do. Tell me what I need to say so that you’ll give me another chance.”
Her lips pulled into a bittersweet smile. Sydney shook her head. “You can’t even say what you lost,” she said. Her anger was gone, replaced entirely with sorrow. “You can’t even say their names, Wes.” When she looked at him, her eyes were searching for something, but when Sydney sighed, it wasn’t clear if she’d found it or not.
“How am I supposed to believe you won’t run again? When you’re still so shattered by their deaths, you can’t even speak their names. You haven’t even started facing your loss, Wes. You pressed pause when they died, and there’s no future in that.”
It was true. Every bit of it. And still, the words cut him to the core. He shook his head. He wanted to say that she didn’t understand, but she’d lost her world, too.
Wes felt trapped. He knew that he couldn’t leave Sydney now, not after the regret of last time. But he didn’t want to stay. He didn’t want to continue to fight about it. He knew that he was wrong. He knew that he was undeserving of her forgiveness.
“I won’t leave because you’re family. I used to watch videos with..” he trailed off again, but picked up a moment after. “There’s this line in Lilo and Stitch about family. ‘Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten’.”
He paused, watching her face for something to let him know she might change her mind. “You feel like home, Sydney. I’m so tired of running. I just want to go home.” He said the words slowly, as if he were just discovering them for the first time.
“You left me behind once,” she replied. She took no pleasure from the words. No satisfaction. The truth of them, the honesty, was so clearly hurting her, causing her pain. But it was the reality he had left her with. The truth he left behind.
“I feel like home right now.” She shook her head. “Show me you mean it for keeps, Wes. That you won’t just move home one day when it suits you, or when it all gets to be too much. Because the pain you haven’t faced is my daily pain, Wes. You’ll have to deal with it. You’ll have to help me, and let me help you. And I just...need more than words. I need more.”
“Okay, Syd,” he said. “I can give you more.”
Where words had failed, Wes fell toward action. He carefully reached forward and took one of her hands in his and guided her out of the room, down the shortened hallway, the stairs, and to the front door. The usually bustling living room was suddenly vacant. As they started to leave, the lights in the house went off one by one until they’d reached the stoop and were fully outside.
“I need you to trust me,” he said, tightening his grip on her hand, though not painfully so.
When it seemed as though she would truly follow him, he lead her across the yard and down the street. The road changed from the comforting hills and green grass of Indiana University to the busy streets of Boston. He stopped outside of his apartment, hesitating for just a moment, before he pushed open the door, taking Sydney with him. Bandit burst toward them, shrieking with excitement. He let Sydney go just long enough to grab the dog’s collar and leash.
The apartment was empty. No pictures. Nothing lived on the walls or ever had. It was spotlessly clean, but in a way that it looked brand new. As though no one had ever lived there. Or ever would. He grabbed the dog and fixed the collar and leash combo around her neck before passing her to Sydney.
“I have to carry this box, if you can walk Bandit,” he explained. “We’re almost there.”
Wes lead the way down the busy streets of Boston and turned just past the bar. The roar of the city ebbed away and they were standing in front of a house with a For Sale sign. He didn’t waver as he pushed forward, right up to the door, and let them both in. He set the box down on a nearby table. “It’s ours,” he said. “It’s not England, but I hoped you would want to stay with us.”
Sydney had asked him for something. She asked for something more than words. So, as he took her hand, Sydney recognized that, if she was going to ask for that, she needed to give him the opportunity to show her instead. As he led her from the house, she kept quiet, waiting to see where this would all lead. Waiting to see if it would all be worth it. Because life was more let downs than uplifting surprises. Life had been like that for a while. But she was giving Wes a chance, because Sydney would always give Wes chances. No matter how much she hurt, no matter how much he hurt her, that was just who she was, and Wes knew that. He knew her.
In the empty apartment, Sydney kneeled down to hug Bandit around the neck, kissing the top of her head before she took the leash. And then, wordlessly, they were walking again, and Sydney was still waiting. She was still giving him the chance to fix things. It wasn’t until they had passed the For Sale sign and walked into the house and shut the door behind them that Sydney really looked at Wes again. She hadn’t cried in England, or Pennsylvania, or Boston, but in Connecticut, there were tears in her eyes.
“I like the sound of that,” she said softly. “Ours.” Her smile was gentle and tearful and warm. It was mixed and confused and happy. It was everything, because in that moment, she felt everything all at once. The moment broke as Bandit whined, and Sydney laughed before undoing the collar to let the dog run free. “Ours,” she said again, because she never thought she’d be able to say it once, let alone twice.
Sydney walked over and opened up the box Wes had carried, taking out picture frames one at a time. She hung them each up above the table, hooks already waiting in the wall. Wes, Jude, and Jeremiah in a pile at the airport after the latter two finally came home from their Spring break trip, Nick making a face in the background. Moving Leila into her dorm. All of them at graduation. The night Jude proposed to Leila. The night Wes proposed to her.
One photo after the next, until the whole wall was full.
“Home,” Wes agreed, taking striding steps to reach her when she had finished, surrounded by the people they both loved. He wasted little time in wrapping his arms around her, breathing her in, holding her close. The tension in his shoulders dropped completely. Peace. He felt at peace.
Something didn’t feel right. Didn’t quite add up, but he ignored it. He kissed her gently at first. Soft. Careful. And then it was a need to be closer. An unignorable ache.
He took her hand to guide her further into the house, pausing for a moment to wave out of the side window at one of the bros in the neighboring garden. “There’s more,” he said, weaving through bookcases and stacks of paintings lining the walls. He moved them up the stairs toward the bedrooms and paused just short of the doorway.
“They’re already here,” he said, sounding both confused and delighted. He dropped into a squat to greet the two children that ran toward them. “See, Syd? We’re a family. A whole family.”
There was sunshine streaming through every window they passed, but that wasn’t what made this place feel warm. With every step, it become clearer that this was a life well lived. They were carving it out for themselves as they went, but it was still a thing of beauty. Growing with them, shaping them. Sydney held his hand like she’d never been asked to let it go, and she followed Wes like she’d follow him anywhere.
Because he showed her when she asked him to. So she would. She would follow him anywhere.
Sydney looked at the children as Wes dropped to hug them, barely hiding a smile. She lowered herself next to them all as well, then winked. “Eyes,” she said, and just as she’d taught them, the children covered their eyes with their hands, giggling as they did so. Sydney’s smile broke through, bright and devious, before she leaned in to kiss Wes, threading her fingers through his hair. “I wouldn’t say ‘whole’ just yet,” she whispered, reaching to take his hand. Her eyes were still closed, forehead touching his, but she didn’t need to see to guide his hand to press flat against her stomach. “But we’re getting there.”